Health Level Seven has announced that it has passed the first ANSI-approved standard specifying the functional requirements for an electronic health record system. The standard contains approximately 1,000 conformance criteria across 130 functions, including medication history, problem lists, orders, clinical decision support, and those supporting privacy and security. The function list is described from a user perspective and enables consistent expression of EHR system functions, while the conformance criteria serves as a reference for purchasers of EHR systems and vendors developing EHR software.
Additional EHR standards development efforts are also under way, said HL7. The EHR functional model will serve as a framework for the legal EHR and for specific profiles for long-term care, emergency department information systems, and behavioral health, for example. And an international team is working toward producing a set of functions and criteria in order for EHR systems to be used as a source of data for clinical research.
